


Penitence

by Hajinnie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Dark Comedy, High Fantasy, Love/Hate, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, Post-Break Up, Reconciliation, Royalty, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29977626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hajinnie/pseuds/Hajinnie
Summary: What was the right course of action when one’s former lover leaves to start a whole other vampire kingdom and now plans to marry another man? Chanyeol’s course of action was to storm into their castle and attempt to convince that former lover, Kyungsoo, to return to him.
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	Penitence

What was the right course of action when one’s former lover leaves to start a whole other rival kingdom and now plans to marry another man? Chanyeol’s course of action was to storm into their castle and attempt to convince that former lover, Kyungsoo, to return to him.

Whether that was the right decision or otherwise, Chanyeol only knew that his feelings for Kyungsoo were strong and were what mattered. All reason was lost to Chanyeol and he only did what he wanted because he knew what he wanted.

**

  
Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were both vampires from the kingdom of Nightsong. Vampires were one of the few races that co-existed alongside other races such as humans, elves, werewolves, and dwarves.

According to their tens of thousands of years of rich history, vampires all descended from a single progenitor, the first vampire named Lilu. It just so happened that Lilu happened to be Kyungsoo’s direct ancestor, thus making Kyungsoo vampire royalty.

Chanyeol was never concerned about the noble and structured lifestyle vampires liked to lead. In fact, he thought vampires were rather stiff and snobbish compared to the more simplistic lives the other races lived.

Chanyeol just didn’t understand why they had to speak formally, act a certain way and why stiff collars, cravats, and black velvet coats had to be a dress code for them when he once saw an elf hunting in the woods wearing nothing but a string of leaves around their waist.

But yet, Chanyeol didn’t say no when his older sister got him a job through connections in the royal family’s palace. Even if it meant he had to be subject even more to the pedantic customs that vampires had to follow and maintain. A job was a job after all and Chanyeol would take anything that got his mother to stop pestering him about finally moving out.

The monarch system was something else Chanyeol couldn’t agree with. If the dwarves could have a democratically elected council of leaders, why couldn’t the vampires do the same?

However, it was there at the palace where Chanyeol first met Kyungsoo, the second prince of the current Queen of the vampiric kingdom. Kyungsoo was a spare while his older brother was the heir. Kyungsoo wasn’t expected to take over the throne under any normal circumstances but he had duties to perform to assist the royal family.

It was Kyungsoo who first expressed an interest in Chanyeol and took the initial steps to get to know each other. Chanyeol was just confused why a prince would be interested in him and honestly missed all the messages and hints that Kyungsoo was giving him.

But Chanyeol did come to enjoy Kyungsoo’s company and began to see him as a friend until Kyungsoo became the first to confess his feelings for Chanyeol one cold and silent wintry night.

Chanyeol didn’t know how to turn down Kyungsoo and although he thoroughly enjoyed the latter’s company, he wasn’t sure if he truly wanted to be with a prince because it meant being tied down to this life he didn’t quite enjoy.

It took some more time before Chanyeol could accept that he was now dating Kyungsoo and a bit more time before he realized he was head over heels in love. Then suddenly, all the stiffness in the vampiric culture that used to bother him no longer mattered because it meant that he could continue being with Kyungsoo.

A few years later after they began dating, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo married, thus making Chanyeol a member of the royal family where he was even more made to speak formally, dress formally and drink his cup of blood with one pinky up.

But Chanyeol accepted that as long as he could wake up every night next to Kyungsoo and spend the rest of his long life with.

Together, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo raised two sons and a daughter until they themselves became adults. Almost a century since they were married, they still looked almost the same as they did when they first met, maybe only aged a bit in the range of a few years of a human’s lifespan. Vampires weren’t immortal, just very resilient and long-lived compared to most.

But things outside of their control fell apart and eventually drove Kyungsoo and Chanyeol away from each other.

The vampires were embroiled in civil war due to a difference in ideology and governance between Kyungsoo’s mother, the reigning Queen, and his grandfather, the abdicated former King who decided he wanted to return to power once more.

Kyungsoo took his mother’s side and so did Chanyeol. Their side won and Kyungsoo’s grandfather’s faction was pushed outside their kingdom to live in exile on an isle far up south where the sun shone bright, a punishment to the nocturnal race of vampires.

It seemed that it was peaceful again until Kyungsoo realized the absolute price of their victory which was devastation, great loss, and a permanent scar in the vampire’s legacy.

Kyungsoo was never just happy because his side won and day by day, he became more clear at the weakness of his mother’s reign and his grandfather’s regret at passing the throne to her. There was a huge price paid for the victory and Kyungsoo felt the utter brute of it.

But there wasn’t much Kyungsoo could do when he was merely a spare to the throne.

Chanyeol could see Kyungsoo’s change of heart and eventually found out he had been communicating with his grandfather who was now rebuilding a second vampire civilization with his followers far up south.

In this new kingdom, Kyungsoo was promised that he would have a say in rulemaking and also be appointed as its heir, where he could finally have the power he so needed to make his visions come true.

Chanyeol begged Kyungsoo to change his mind, fearing that he would lose Kyungsoo forever.

“Please do not leave me,” were Kyungsoo’s words to him that one night in their room when Chanyeol finally confronted Kyungsoo about his impending betrayal.

Snow fell outside as the silence enveloped the night and their actions changed the course of their lives forever and permanently.

“But you are the one who is about to leave me,” Chanyeol trembled, confused and fearful.

“You are aware of how I feel, that I do not belong here. I no longer derive happiness from my state, Chanyeol. I do not feel wanted as much as I am just needed and you are aware of this,” Kyungsoo uttered the words that Chanyeol felt like was more of him to say instead.

“I always want you, Kyungsoo, until the end of my time,” Chanyeol gasped in disbelief.

“You know I do not mean you, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo replied, grabbing Chanyeol’s hands with his own, “Come with me, Chanyeol. We’ll leave this all behind, we’ll make a place for ourselves, a place where we finally feel like we belong. Where nobody else has to die and lose their lives unnecessarily. Our children may leave with us if they wish to.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Chanyeol shook his head, still in the shock of the uncertainty.

“I am leaving this very night, Chanyeol. I have made up my mind and I want you with me. I believed you would go anywhere and do anything for me, so why won’t you make this sacrifice and leave with me?” Kyungsoo’s grasp on Chanyeol’s hands loosened but he still held them.

“I do love you very much Kyungsoo, truly and still, but this is a hard decision for me to make. I wish I had the answer to tell you why but it scares me to leave into the plane of the unknown,” Chanyeol spoke, exasperatedly, “It’s not as if you’re telling me to go leave with you into a nice and cozy house by a river. You’re basically telling me to uproot my entire life to go and build a different kingdom with you.”

“So you would stay here even if it means being without me? So you would choose to stay here over being with me?” Kyungsoo confronted, letting go of Chanyeol’s hands, “If so, then I do not understand your love. Had you been in my position, I wouldn’t have thought twice to leave when you asked to. Is that too much for me to ask of you!?”

“I’m afraid so,” Chanyeol admitted, strangely feeling calmer at the realization of his loss, “I apologize that I am not as strong as you need me to be. I do not have the strength to uproot my entire life to leave into an unknown place with you. Even if this life I lead now was not something I even dreamed of, I embraced it and became a part of it. I don’t think I can do that yet again, Kyungsoo. It’s not a commitment I can make.”

Kyungsoo held back his tears but it was obvious to anyone that he too was devastated that they could not see eye to eye regarding this decision, and also maybe at the realization that their love wasn’t actually strong enough to overcome this adversity.

Kyungsoo never saw this coming or that their lives would eventually change this much, but he only blamed himself. After all, it was him who initiated their relationship and he also took fault for its end.

Kyungsoo left that night, leaving his wedding ring atop the fireplace in their study. Kyungsoo formally abdicated from his position on the throne and to add more salt to the wound, none of their children decided to leave with him.

Feeling betrayed and abandoned by his entire family gave Kyungsoo even further conviction that leaving was the right decision.

Together with his grandfather and the other vampires they convinced with their cause, they moved up far south of the continent where there was no winter and created the kingdom of Sunhold, a smaller vampiric kingdom that was roughly the size of one-tenth of the original vampire kingdom of Nightsong.

In an effort to abandon their former identities, Sunhold vampires made the painful sacrifice to be awake during the day and slept at night, essentially changing the basis of their racial identity. Their dark hair and eyes lightened with sun exposure, their skin color becoming more tanned until they completely evolved into a new subspecies of their own known as the Sun vampires.

Not many could stand this harsh change and some eventually withered away and died, leaving only the strong behind, albeit with a shorter lifespan than original vampires due to the changes they had undergone.

Even if the Sun vampires had rebranded their entire identity and wore red velvet instead, some things never changed and that was their stiff and formal lifestyle. But above it all, the love between Chanyeol and Kyungsoo had all but faded even over the next 350 years they would spend apart, even with how much their lives had changed in between then. 

And that was about to be proven again, even if buried away for a long time.

Chanyeol finally decided he had enough when he heard the news that Kyungsoo of Goldsun was going to get married to one of the military leaders of the second vampire kingdom.

Sure, they hadn’t been together for over three centuries now but Chanyeol sure as hell wasn’t going to let someone who was still his lawfully wedded husband- since they never officially divorced- marry someone else.

Especially not just right before what would have been their 612th wedding anniversary.

Alone, Chanyeol took the long journey that lasted almost fifteen days to Goldsun far up in the south. He traveled by horse across land, by boat across water, through underground dwarven tunnels, and over mountain ridges until he finally arrived in the forests outside the Goldsun capital.

All the traveling must have worn Chanyeol out or he was simply blinded by jealousy when he forgot that Sun vampires were awake during the day for he decided to infiltrate them right in the middle of the day, thinking they would be asleep then.

Chanyeol had to fight his way through a few guards in the capital city’s citadel who saw him and knew he didn’t belong. But he mostly went by unnoticed simply because he was lucky that there weren’t many people about that day.

Chanyeol had no idea where Kyungsoo would be in this unknown place that was so oppressively bright to him, but the big castle tower with spires in the middle with statues surrounding a fountain outside gave him some sort of idea where.

It sounded right for a prince to be right there, according to Chanyeol that was.

As luck would have had it or simply because fate wanted them to be together again, Chanyeol fought through some guards at the entrance to make his way inside to find Kyungsoo in a shaded terrace communing with some of his men by his side.

Chanyeol gasped silently at the sight of his beloved Kyungsoo for the first time in a while. Kyungsoo looked different now, his hair was no longer black but a golden brown, his eyes maybe a lighter brown and Chanyeol thought Kyungsoo definitely looked better in red velvet.

They were around the same age but Kyungsoo looked maybe slightly older than him now.

But above it all, Kyungsoo still looked like the man he loved and he was even sure of it now.

“Halt!” Kyungsoo raised his hand, stopping his men from charging at the intruder being Chanyeol.

“What is this I hear, Kyungsoo!? You already went and moved on and are going to marry another man now? What happened to our vows for being together for all of eternity?” Chanyeol questioned out loud, standing a platform lower than Kyungsoo who was atop a stone terrace overlooking him.

“Don’t act as if you don’t know, Chanyeol. We haven’t been together in a while and I’m free to live my life as I please now. In fact, I did a courtesy to you by sending you news of my impending marriage,” Kyungsoo responded, raising his voice.

“You’re still married to me! We never divorced! You cannot marry another man until then!” Chanyeol argued.

“Only in the eyes of the law of a kingdom, I am no longer a part of! I wrote you a letter every few decades to ask about our children and you never wrote back to me. I tried to keep in contact with you after I left but you didn’t!” Kyungsoo brought up, swinging his arms to express his frustration.

“But I didn’t know what to say,” Chanyeol confessed, albeit a bit defensively.

“Then if you didn’t, then why have you come to disrupt my peace and the life I worked to build here? I never bothered you all these years! You didn’t want to be with me so what are you doing here!?” Kyungsoo pointed out.

“No, no, that’s not true,” Chanyeol denied, shaking his head and flustering slightly.

“Oh really?” Kyungsoo hissed, glaring daggers at Chanyeol a level beneath him, “You hated the royal family, you didn’t want to be a part of it but yet you married me anyway and became a part of it and when I wanted to leave with you, you chose to stay! In my eyes, that was you abandoning me,” Kyungsoo pointed at himself, frustrated, angry, and on the verge of tears.

“And that’s why I’m here to make up for it,” Chanyeol’s voice dropped lower, all of a sudden becoming more calm and collected. “Let’s leave together for real now, none of this. Just you and me, we can live in a small house by the river. There’s a nice town I passed by on the way here. I know what you really want, Kyungsoo, and I know it’s not this.”

  
”Enough with you and the house by the river! Don’t think you could ever even feel a fraction of the pain I felt! For so long I have withheld my anger and emotions!” Kyungsoo snapped.

“I don’t care. You are not marrying that Baek whatever guy as long as I will allow it,” Chanyeol firmly stood his ground.

“Very well,” Kyungsoo’s tone dropped, his glare heightened and sharpened at Chanyeol, “If you want my wrath then you can have it.”

Kyungsoo undid the clasp on his neck that held his cloak up, throwing it onto the floor as he turned to his men to leave them be but not before borrowing a sword from one of them.

“Consider yourself lucky that my grandfather isn’t in town at the moment. He, the Lord of Goldsun will have your head atop a stake for your insolence,” Kyungsoo threatened, sword waving menacingly in his hold.

“Huh, I thought after all these years, you’d be the Lord at least,” Chanyeol commented.

“Silence!” Kyungsoo almost yelled.

“Oh wait, shit,” Chanyeol cursed, dodging backward when realizing that Kyungsoo was serious when he saw the blade of the silver sword swung right in front of him, barely missing his face by a finger’s length.

Chanyeol didn’t come unarmed of course but he didn’t want to fight Kyungsoo. It wasn’t his intention when he came here but yet it still boiled down to this, but Chanyeol couldn’t say he was too surprised.

Chanyeol fended himself off with his sheathed sword, refusing to take it out of the scabbard, blocking off Kyungsoo’s swings and thrusts at him.

He wasn’t here to kill or hurt anyone, in fact, all he did was knock out and tied up all the guards he had come across along the way. Hurting Kyungsoo was something he couldn’t even imagine doing.

He was only here for Kyungsoo because he still believed in their love. Perhaps even stubbornly so. But was he the only one who still believed in it?

Kyungsoo’s anger was genuine and seemed so but yet to Chanyeol, everything seemed too calculative and careful still.

Kyungsoo could have swung out his arm even further, pushed his torso forward to reach over if he truly wanted his sword to cut across Chanyeol. But yet it still seemed that he was holding himself back.

Chanyeol saw that as a sliver of hope, while still maintaining his caution.

“Please do not leave a mess on my walls,” Kyungsoo sighed when Chanyeol backed into the white walls trying to avoid his sword.

Losing his balance, Chanyeol stumbled over onto the floor but managed to catch himself with his hands. It was a clumsy step on his behalf, certainly a mistake in such a tense moment.

‘Your vanity will cost you everything,” Kyungsoo uttered, the point of his sword pointed right in front of between Chanyeol’s eyes, having the advantage of being the one on his feet.

“Me, vain?” Chanyeol clicked his tongue, acting offended at the comment, more so than the situation he was currently in.

“Well, it was rather vain of you to waltz into my place to think that you could change my mind about a decision I made by myself,” Kyungsoo brought up, sword still firmly held in front of Chanyeol, “How dare you try and destroy the happiness I so painfully tried to build.”

“But are you truly happy? Do you feel like you belong here now? Is this what you really wanted?” Chanyeol questioned, feeling more confident than before as he slapped away Kyungsoo’s sword away from his face without much resistance.

Chanyeol stood up, back on his feet where he now towered over Kyungsoo’s shorter stature. Now, feeling more justified enough for his actions and words.

“Even this isn’t what I truly wanted, this is what wouldn’t hurt me!” Kyungsoo was painfully honest as he yelled at the contrastingly calm Chanyeol, “I asked you to come with me and you refused, I didn’t want to lead this life alone without you!”

“I know,” Chanyeol agreed, “I didn’t have the strength then but I think I know what I need to do. I will save you from this place.”

“I don’t need your help-,” Kyungsoo was abruptly cut off by Chanyeol raising his hand and grabbing onto his arm.

“We can continue arguing about this when we get there,” Chanyeol mentioned as he pulled out a bronze cube from his pocket that began to emit a low light from it when he pressed down on a black line running on its finish.

“No!” Kyungsoo shouted, trying to yank his arm away from Chanyeol’s grasp, knowing what Chanyeol had in his hand, not expecting Chanyeol to be in possession of one and also not having enough time to react against it.

What Chanyeol had was a good for one-time teleportation to a fixed predetermined destination, just one of the many crafted inventions that the human race was known for.

Over the past three and a half centuries, the Nightsong vampires had to branch out and accept trade deals and relations with the humans to survive in the changing times especially now with a rival vampiric kingdom that they used to be at war with and never really had an official truce with.

Having never left the royal family after his marriage, Chanyeol was one of the Nightsong vampires who got to profit from that venture.

Chanyeol tore open a portal with the cubic device before pulling himself and Kyungsoo through it.

Inter-dimensional travels did have their downsides though and in this one, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo ended up falling through the air over a sandy desert somewhere in the central regions of the continent, far away from both Nightsong and Goldsun itself.

After all, he was only promised that he and another person would get to a destination but whether they got there safely or not was another question.

Instinct took over Chanyeol’s confusion and he quickly pulled Kyungsoo closer to him in a matter of a few seconds, pressing the latter in a tight and protective embrace before he landed back first onto the sand dunes below.

Kyungsoo’s fall had been cushioned by Chanyeol’s body but the moment they landed, Kyungsoo’s first action was to check up on Chanyeol.

“Oh my goodness, are you alright?” Kyungsoo worried, still on top of Chanyeol who was flat on his back on the sand, in the middle of nowhere without a single building in sight.

Chanyeol had to take a moment before he could talk. He wasn’t really in any pain but this place was even brighter than Goldsun. As a nocturnal creature who had a low light resistance, it wasn’t the best for him but he just wanted to be somewhere else far away from their homes with Kyungsoo.

Chanyeol chuckled a little, albeit a bit stressful sounding. Kyungsoo straddling him from on top sure did most of the job of keeping the sun out of his face.

Cheekily, Chanyeol commented, “It sure does feel nice to have you on top of me again like you used to ride me.”

  
”Oh fuck you, you’re alright,” Kyungsoo cursed and sighed, losing his usual prim and proper composure as he got up from Chanyeol to stand up.

Chanyeol laughed, moving so he was sitting up with his legs crossed on the sand, covered by the shade of Kyungsoo’s shadow. He composed himself before continuing, “I’m sorry for dragging you out here but I still wish to fight for our love. I want to make amends and fix our relationship. Please do not marry that man, Kyungsoo, even if he has a prized racing horse collection from what I heard.”

“I wasn’t planning to anyway,” Kyungsoo revealed, heaving as he squinted his eyes to look in the distance to assess their current whereabouts.

“Wait, what do you mean?” Chanyeol was even more confused, so much that he had to stand up to look at Kyungsoo as if the truth would reveal itself by doing so.

“He’s just a friend of mine, Chanyeol. It was my idea to fabricate the news of us getting married because I hoped that you would at least contact me to say something about that at least. I missed you, I wanted to hear from you even if it was a goodbye. I never stopped loving you, I only pretended to myself that I didn’t so I would stop hurting,” Kyungsoo confessed, turning and having to lift his head up to look at the taller Chanyeol.

“I love you too,” Chanyeol reciprocated with all his heart, and no more words needed to be said before they broke into tears in each other’s embrace. He had waited too long- even by vampire standards- just to say those words again. 

They apologized to each other, expressed their regret for their actions and their desire to move on from there even if they didn’t exactly know where to begin despite being alive for centuries now and the matter of fact that they were in rival vampire factions.

Then came the good old question they absolutely needed to have with each other.

“Do you know how to get out of here?” Kyungsoo asked, after wiping his tears away with a handkerchief he carried and retrieving his sword from the sands after they had fallen through the portal.

“Not exactly but I have a general idea of the cardinal direction we should go to that will lead us to the next form of civilization. Probably a few hours by foot,” Chanyeol answered.

“Let’s get moving then. I need to make some contact before I’m gone too long and my grandfather decides to invade Nighthold unnecessarily,” Kyungsoo suggested, looking at Chanyeol beside him.

“Together?” Chanyeol smiled.

“Together, of course,” Kyungsoo affirmed, “We’ll figure things out as we go along. We have a lot of matters to catch up on.”

Kyungsoo smiled back at Chanyeol and for a while, things seemed more hopeful between the both of them. They still had a way to go until then.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the result of the many plot bunnies and worlds that I've come up with. Obviously, there usually is always a bigger overarching story to it but the question is if I want to write it or not.
> 
> \--
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hajinnie)   
>  [CC](https://curiouscat.me/hajinnie)


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